Powwow builds bridges
A celebration of Indigenous culture that brought hundreds of people to Montebello park Sunday was only the beginning of efforts to build bridges between communities.
For the first time since it began four years ago, the Niagara Regional Native Centre’s annual powwow was held in the St. Catharines park, rather than at the centre’s facility in rural Niagaraon-the-Lake.
By changing the venue to the downtown park along with colourful costumed dancers and pounding songs of Indigenous drum circles, the organization’s executive director Mitch Baird said the festival could not be overlooked.
“This is much better,” Baird said, referring to the new location.
“To come out to the centre in Niagara-on-the-Lake you have to be a big powwow fan. Here, you just have to be in the neighbourhood or a powwow fan. It helps us out. We’re pretty lucky that way.
“People can see our ways and how all of our nations celebrate, and then we can work together to include that more in the work that the city does.”
The downtown park was also a fitting location for an organization Baird described as “an urban Indigenous centre.”
“That’s what we are. And this is about as urban as you can get in the setting we want,” Baird said.
The change to this year’s event is only the start of strengthened relations between Native American groups and municipalities, said St. Catharines Mayor Walter Sendzik.
Following the Grand Entry — a colourful dance and ceremony held to start the powwow — Sendzik discussed the growing partnership between the Indigenous community and the city that flies the Haudenosaunee flag outside city hall, along with the Canadian, Ontario and St. Catharines flags.
“As we celebrate the 150th anniversary of our country, we as a city have decided to take a bit different route. The pathway we’re on is talking about the next 150 years,” Sendzik said.
“We acknowledge that the previous 150 have not been kind to the First Nations brothers and sisters, that there have been a lot of things done that make me as a Canadian ashamed.”
Bringing the powwow into the heart of St. Catharines, however, typified the city’s plans to embrace Indigenous culture in the years to come.
“The powwow is a symbol of where we’re going,” Sendzik said.
“In the coming weeks, the City of St. Catharines is going to be announcing a partnership with the Niagara Native Centre to ensure that the Truth and Reconciliation (Commission) recommendations are going to be embedded in our community through our bylaws and through the way we celebrate our community.”
Baird described the city’s plans as a bridge between the city and First Nations.
“It’s a chance for us to walk across it together and see what’s on the other side. We know it’s time for reconciliation, but we don’t know exactly what that’s going to look like, but we’re working on it,” he said.
“We have a long way to go, 100 per cent, but it’s things like this that get us visible again in the community and make people aware that it’s not all bad stuff. There’s a lot of good stuff going on, and that’s what we want to show people.”